And welcome again to the next installment of our bi-monthly virtual community meeting update.

And just want to confirm, Melissa, we are recording because I want to make sure that recording is available for later view.

Yep.

Yep.

That's correct.

Great.

Thank you.

And so right, that's one of the things we stress is that we do like to run these things on a regular cadence so that people can stay informed and aware of what's going on.

And of course, we know that not everybody can make it at the set meeting time.

So we always want to make sure the materials are available whenever people are able to.

Let's uh jump over to the next slide.

So, what is this event?

As I mentioned, it's the next installment of our bi-monthly uh meeting series.

Uh, we started running these, I think in April of 2025.

Uh, and the idea was that we wanted to make sure that everyone was uh aware and involved and had access to information for what was coming up, uh, either at uh upcoming public hearings, whether it was for planning commission or city council, or that they could stay aware of uh aware and informed of ongoing planning activities, uh especially long-range planning activities.

And so the idea was to hold these meetings on uh on an every other month basis.

We didn't want to overload people with meetings, but we wanted them to be frequent enough uh that could that people could stay aware and informed.

Uh and uh you'll see the uh the web link to our webpage there, Alexander VA.gov slash planning.

Uh all of the materials that uh, in addition to other things you can find there, all the materials from this meeting series are available there.

The the slides are there, the videos are there, the QA is there, uh, and not just for the most recent meeting, but all of them going back to April of last year, and we'll keep doing that going forward.

As I mentioned, this is a meeting series that we run in this format because we want it to be accessible if people are at home on their computer, if they're on their mobile phone, uh, or they can't catch it uh live, they can always catch it after because the important thing is how do we get the information out.

Let's go to the next slide.

Uh and as I mentioned, this is going to cover a lot of different topics.

We can see the agenda uh on the left side of the screen there.

Uh, of course, we always want people to feel like this is their meeting, starting with a welcoming message.

Uh, and then we'll run through uh all the various things uh that that come across uh uh through planning and zoning.

Uh long range planning.

Uh tonight we're going to talk about uh the latest on Nuke Street land use plan.

We've also started a spotlight series.

Uh when we do see when development applications come in, it's common for uh people to have similar concerns from project to project.

They ask about things uh like landscaping, they ask about stormwater, they ask about transportation.

And so what we've started doing, and you can go back and see these in prior videos, and we'll see if we can't pull these out as their own web links.

Uh, but we've started doing is uh five to 10 minute segments on these top button issues, these important issues that people ask about time and again on different applications.

Tonight we're going to be talking about transportation engineering uh and the uh the guides and rigor that go into reviewing each application.

Uh then we'll be talking about upcoming uh uh applications, development and activity, and then also uh zoning ordinance updates, uh proposed zoning ordinance updates that are in the works, uh, but of course haven't gone to concept hearing yet, so they're not a perfect, but they are things that are uh under review and uh in the development.

And then at the end of the meeting, uh as always, there's time for QA.

Uh, we're gonna try to get to all the questions tonight.

Uh, we've been successful doing that so far.

If that turns out that we can't get to all of them tonight, we'll of course post answers to it to any questions we didn't get to on the website.

Uh as you go, if you want to uh punch in your QA, we're gonna save all the questions for the end.

Uh, but certainly when a question pops into your uh uh comes to mind, go ahead and type it in.

There should be a QA box meeting to hover your mouse over the lower center of the screen.

Uh, type it into the QA box, and we'll read them out and answer them at the end of the meeting.

Uh let's go to the next slide.

And this is a chart that we introduce in all these meetings.

Uh, and it it shall it helps show the connection of all the different kinds of things we're talking about tonight.

So uh it is uh it begins with uh the community engagement process uh on the far left, the small area planning SAP process.

Uh that's where staff and unity council, boards and commissions come together to develop a vision for what they want the community to be in the future.

Uh and that has explicit things like goals and recommendations, and it pulls together all these different elements of city planning and community development.

Uh that serves as uh the guiding framework uh for development going.

Uh once that framework is in place, the zoning regulations uh can be made, uh can be put in place that support and encourage and attract that kind of development and investment.

Zoning regulations are specific rules for land use, right?

Things like the apartment buildings versus office versus retail.

That's the land use category, the open space.

What are the requirements for open space on each site?

How should the streets be laid out?

What are the design requirements for individual buildings and sites?

How would development be phased over?

Once those rules are in place, applicants, developers can apply for permission to construct things.

They most commonly people come in with the BSVP, development special use permit application.